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La Oscuridad de Mousillon (Relato)
Sit down, good friends, and rest your weary bones. Let I, Raviolo, the renowned Bard of Trantio, wrest you with a tale performed by mine own voice and lute for only a modest gratuity! You have done well to make it through another day, surrounded by the perils and upsets of a grievous and dangerous world. But let me tell you of a darker place, a blighted land forgotten by all but the bravest and foolhardiest; a land embraced by the damned, yet not so far from here; a dark land of monstrous dealings, right upon Bretonnia’s doorstep. The land of Mousillon. You have heard what they say of it, yes? They say Mousillon is a cursed place, disavowed by fate and doomed to misfortune from the very beginning. Forgotten by the gods and forsaken by man, it exists now as a haven for the fetid and the depraved; you know their names. I need not speak them here. Yes, it is true, they make residence so very close to Bretonnia’s borders, but you must not despair, friends. They seem content to dwell in the forgotten Dukedom, so long as they remain eternally undisturbed. Poor Mousillon. It was not always this way, my dear listeners, for Mousillon was once a place of earnest beauty and prosperity. Shall I tell you of it? Yes, I thought so; it is a tale of most excellent excitement, and terrible tragedy. There was a man – as there always is in such a tale – a man called Landuin. He knew our great and noble leader, Gilles le Breton, greatest of the Grail Companions and firm friend to Landuin. Together, they saved Mousillon from a wave of Greenskins who fell from the mountains like rain upon the city. When Gilles founded Bretonnia, it was Landuin he made his first Duke. That would make Mousillon Bretonnia’s second city! Did you know that friends? A city so reviled and afeared by all, the second-most important city in the nation? What’s more, my attentive friends, Landuin himself was nearly King, and Mousillon nearly the jewel in the crown of Bretonnia. You look at me with disbelief, but ‘tis true! When Gilles passed from our world, ‘twas Landuin who was well placed to succeed him, but instead the young son of Gilles, Louis, was crowned and another ruled as regent. Landuin was passed over and increasingly fell from grace; he bickered, he argued, he languished. Mousillon, the shining city that could have been, fell further and further from the light as its Duke watched sullenly from afar as King Louis set out on a quest for the Holy Grail, and he remained behind. To his dying day, Landuin was at odds with both King Louis and his steward, Thierulf. He remained in Mousillon, where he grew old and bitter before finally dying, filled with spite and nostalgia. Mousillon became a reflection of the Duke – once proud and mighty, brought to mediocrity by the ambitions of powerful men. But my friends, I hear you wonder, that’s not the story, surely? Mousillon may have been brought low, but it is somewhat worse now, yes? Well, yes friends, you are correct. Whilst Mousillon was brought low, its troubles were not at an end. In fact, you could say that it is precisely because it was brought to such mendacity that further troubles were yet to befall it. It was many centuries later, far past the age of Landuin’s disappointment, and Mousillon still languished in the gloom of eternal tedium. But their fortunes were only to get worse, as Bretonnia was struck by a great and terrible plague – the Red Death! You have heard of it, yes? I am sure, mothers are wont to scare little children with tales of vicious buboes across the neck and body. They say it began in Bordeleaux, but who can say for sure? Whilst it was not Mousillon alone that was ravaged by the pox – all of Bretonnia felt its terrible pain – it was the Duke of Mousillon who was to be the nation’s salvation. His name was Merovech, and he and his retinue seemed unaffected by the pox – a most mysterious development indeed, don’t you think? Merovech and his Knights rode out to defeat a growing menace that emerged at Bretonnia’s weakest moment – the Skaven! Risen from their holes and burrows, they set themselves upon devouring those noble Bretonnians not yet destroyed by the disease. But for Merovech, these filthy beasts would have surely succeeded, but the Duke put them to the sword and won the day for all of us! A noble tale of valour, deserving of place in the song books - surely Mousillon was to rise to prosperity on the back of this? It was not, my friends and listeners, to be… Merovech was rightly hailed as the ‘Saviour of Bretonnia’, my friends, and a great feast was thrown at Mousillon in his honour. Whilst the houses and streets of the realm were still half-filled with corpses and the dying, the desire for revelry was overwhelming and much-needed, so celebrate they did. Yet their festivities were short-lived, as Merovech the Saviour soon soured in everyone’s opinion, transforming into Merovech the Mad. Around the great hall were criminals. And no, my friends, not as indentured servants, but as executed trophies, hung and impaled and strewn about! The horror that the guests – and indeed, the King! – experienced was nothing next to the revulsion and terror they felt when the servants themselves were revealed to be shambling corpses, brought back to a state of Undeath by Dark Magic! The King was furious, and Merovech was defiant. As two men often do when tempers are flared, they fought. What a fight it was, friends! Savage and fierce, they scrambled and duelled throughout the great hall until, finally, with rage in his heart and blood on his lips, Merovech ripped the King’s throat out and drank his blood! A most chilling sight, to be sure, and one that sent the remaining nobles fleeing for their own homes. Merovech was made King, despite it all, crowned by the Fey Enchantress herself. Mousillon, my friends, was at last the ‘shining’ jewel of the Bretonnian crown; all gore-soaked and treacherous. But as these things always go, my good companions, Merovech did not last. This ruler of bones, this King of a plague-blighted land, was soon brought to defeat by the Duke of Lyonesse. In the end, Merovech faced both enemies without and within, as his Knights finally revolted against his insane and dark dealings. He fought with a bravery that only madness can inspire, felling many foes, but ultimately he was overwhelmed and killed. Mousillon became part of Lyonesse and again fell into shadow and despair… So treachery and Dark Magic brought the might of Mousillon to ruin. Yet fate, my friends, was done making a bitter example of the poor, blighted city. The Red Death returned, ravaging whatever semblance of normality the populace had managed to scrape together, killing so many that even now the city bears the scars. Yet darkness and corruption, friends, are unlikely to sit easy and even less inclined to pass quietly into that sanguine night. Evil begets evil; such a blighted place as Mousillon becomes a nexus of horror, growing only more despicable over time. Many have tried to tame the beast that is Mousillon, my friends, but none have succeeded – all have perished or been driven mad in the attempt. Duke Maldred tried to bring Mousillon to heel, and succeeded only in falling into insanity and trying to seize the crown of Bretonnia by force. It was he who ushered in the final failure of Mousillon, with much destruction. And what of Mousillon now, friends? What of this thrice-blighted and countlessly-damned city? It is now a husk of what it was, a darkening bleak spot on the noble tapestry of the Bretonnian nation. They speak in hushed whispers of what has become of that place now. Corruption, they say, seeps into every pore; the wells are infected by warpstone, and that those killed by the pox shuffle through the streets, given a queer sort of life again by an experimenting Necromancer. They even say a Vampire Lord himself, nefarious but secretive, rules over the broken remains of the once-proud city, ensconced in his tower, daring any with noble heart and courageous spirit to try and reclaim this thoroughly-unloved place. So take heart, friends, for your great deeds this day are worthy of praise, and mayhap one day I will sing of them. But remember the fateful tale of Mousillon, and never let your foolhardy senses and lust for adventure carry you to the gates of that terrible city. Yet now that you have heard, how can you possibly resist? And with that, adieu, my friends, adieu, adieu. Adieu… Fuente * Total War Warhammer Categoría:Relato Bretonia Categoría:Pendiente de traducir Categoría:Relato Total War Warhammer